We got to epcot around 3 on Saturday and watched people streaming out with two Figment buckets each. Almost all of them were middle aged adults without kids. I can't figure out why people are willing to pay even $25 for these things, let alone a huge premium on eBay.
We are taking our girls for the first time in February and staying at Pop. They're too young to enjoy Universal or we would have stayed over there...
Originally Posted by PhDeac
n00b question but are Figment Buckets NFTs?
Pop is a good location especially if you’re on the side by the Skyliner and the Riviera hotel.
It was only 4 years ago you could get all 3 of the all star resorts for about $100/night.
Add in that disney now charges about $25/night for parking even if you are staying at their resorts and it becomes a good value to just rent a condo off property and Uber it to the parks.
Disney seems to be very packed and very expensive nowadays, but everything I see is that the 50th anniversary has been a failure and Disney has no bullets left in the gun before Epic Universe opens in 2-3 years.
RIP Disney World.
Aren’t the Tron and Guardians coasters supposed to be cool
Yeah. GOTG is opening this summer. Tron should be opening late 2022 or early 2023. But there are no more major rides that have been announced that will be ready by 2025. For comparison, GOTG and Tron were announced and started construction in Summer 2017.
So anything major coming up in 2024 or 2025 probably would have been announced already.
Animal Kingdom is next up for a next big addition after getting Pandora in May 2017.
My timeshare is minutes away and we shuttle to the parks free of charge.
Screw the House of Mouse and their parking fee.
If Disney is packed then how is their 50th anniversary a failure? Also I don’t know anything about Epic Universe, I’ll have to check it out
Draxx them sklounst
That’s the question. Seems like a disconnect between the typical measures of success.
There’s a larger story about how seeking to please investors with quarterly earnings reports creates more failure points and instability for a company that should be too big to fail long term. But this probably isn’t the thread for that.
Epic Universe looks amazing. Here’s a good overview from several months ago.
https://youtu.be/KNDV-Xezb1M
Tron is very cool. Rode it in Shanghai, quite possibly my favorite Disney ride (but I'm not a Star Wars fan so Rise of the Resistance isn't quite the big deal it is to most).
My experience this past week resulted in a few observations:
(1) I will no longer recommend Disney to anyone else and I will push back when someone references it as a life checkbox item.
(2) The experience was interesting.
Disney is presently protected by in-group psychology at an astounding rate. Middle-class individuals who have wrapped their identity in with "the Disney experience" spend relatively large amounts of money at Disney world, not due to an objectively perceived value, but instead to support a subjective alignment with their perceived self.
If you go, you'll notice things like the vast majority of park-goers wearing a Disney shirt or other Disney apparel. Unbelievable markup on otherwise mediocre products, simply due to affiliation with Disney. For example, medium-sized shrimp and flank steak with a starch at $65/plate. Little Mermaid themed plastic bubble wand at $30. Six pack of 12 oz bud light cans at $14. Six pack of 12 oz Coke cans at $8. A 20 oz coke at $5.50.
What's interesting to me is that a large number of park attendees don't seem to care at all about the price. They seem to be "in the moment," and 100% about the "experience." I lost count of the number of times that I couldn't find a price for an item, but people around me were ripping them from the shelves hand over fist while I was trying to determine the cost. It didn't matter if it was a toy sword, a turkey leg, or a T-shirt.
Gone are the days where Grandma and Grandpa walk hand-in-hand with their grandchildren from the tea cup ride to Thunder Mountain. Now, there's an app for that.
It was obvious that Disney has spent a considerable amount of time and effort on "people logistics." Their forecasts on ride wait times were scary accurate. The paths were carefully crafted to direct traffic in a way that rarely became over-crowded or overwhelming. The app seems to have been a devil's bargain in this regard - it funnels people into lower-density areas, but at the cost of roughly 3/5 observed adults looking at their phones at any given point while walking.
Pre-gaming and "getting smart" about Disney is now at a premium. I hired a travel agent, but made a huge mistake in relying on them to tell me everything I needed to know. I think I could have enhanced my children's experience by spending 20-30 hours browsing online forums and other "tip rich" areas.
In sum, Disney probably knows best, but I've always held the belief that the low-income masses hold heavy sway on the cultural zeitgeist - and Disney is not catering to those people at it's parks. Those people are straight up priced the fuck out of going to that place.
My wife's father worked for ABC, so we've gone to Disney lots of times for free and all that. This year, we're running two races at the end of March and the whole process had been really overwhelming. My wife is doing most of the legwork, but everything has to be planned down to the minute it seems, whether it's rides, food, or anything else. They've really taken the spontaneity out of the whole experience. It's definitely stressed my wife out trying to organize this whole thing.
Great post, Knight. That sums up my current disdain for Disney. It’s clear what they’re doing and it’s ugly.
I did a three family trip to Universal this weekend. We got up early Saturday morning and drove to the park. We got to the Royal Pacific hotel at about 8:15. Checked in to the hotel and got our Express Pass for Saturday and Sunday.
We met up with our friends at 8:45 in the lobby, took a boat over to City Walk, went to Islands of Adventure. By 10 am, 10 of the 12 of us had ridden Velicocoaster, one of the best roller coasters in the world, in the standby line. The rest of the day was at the whims of the kids. No plans except to have lunch at Mythos (highly recommend the lamb shank). We rode whatever we want to ride. We only waited more than 15 minutes for the major rides.
We went to both parks and left when the parks closed. We took a five minute walk back to the hotel. I got our stuff and went up to the room to find all three families booked the same large suite that was on special. We had a nice dinner. I earned enough dad points to bring my tablet to the table to watch the UNC game in front of a TV with Niners-Packers. Then the dads went to the lounge and watched the second half.
We got up a little later Sunday morning and did a few rides again. For $400, we got a room better than any room I’ve stayed in at Disney and two days of Express Pass for a family of four.
Good posts from Doug and Ph.
We're currently in Orlando for a trip my wife booked nearly a year ago in confidence of a brand new world in a year... it is different. took the kids out of school for a couple days because there are also a couple teacher work days. Today was day three. Two at universal and today was animal park at Disney. Two vastly different experiences at the parks. In addition to the observations above Universal was a much better experience.
Checking in was far superior at Universal. Quick and easy all around. Disney was sloooow and a little painful. Having to carry those cards around sucked. I'm sure the bracelet is easier or maybe we were doing it wrong. There may be an app for that but at Disney there is a cost for that. It's no longer nickel and diming. It's tens and twenty everywhere. Just one big grift. Everywhere you look there's an additional cost.
I thought the adult Harry Potter fans were weird but they seemed happy and "fun." The adult Disney fans were... zombies?? Really weird.
At universal we had reasonable wait times for most rides even without fast pass or whatever they called. Waited an hour for one of the HP rides but I think it was slowed by people coming in out of some rain on Wednesday morning. Other than that most rides were reasonable waits that a 9 and 12 yo managed the waits pretty well.
We all really enjoyed Hagrids bike coaster. Some nice surprises and shake ups for a coaster. Also, decent length. Most of the other HP stuff was fun but would not be worth a long wait. Velocicoaster was great. Hulk was really fun. I loved the Simpsons ride. Just really a fun time and my kids have just started watching the show recently so made it extra fun.
Fast and furious ride was awful. Really short and barely worth doing. I may have shot myself if I 2aited more than the 20 min or so it was.
The avatar flight ride was about 70 minutes. Felt interminable while we were waiting. The ride itself was awesome and one of the longest rides we took over the 3 days. Afterwards my 9 yo who can't stand still for long said, "that wait was WORTH IT!"
So tomorrow we are taking a break from the parks to hit up the Kennedy Space center. We'll be back at Disney Monday for the Hollywood stuff (kids are really excited for star wars. After today I'm much less excited to return to Disney.
Good post. Sorry I didn’t mention that Fast and the Furious is horrible. It’s a running joke in the Universal online fan community. One of the designers basically admitted the ride sucked. I wouldn’t be surprised if they drop it in some way. Everything except the ride is pretty cool so it’s worth getting in the line to check out the queue.
At Universal, everyone is looking around and enjoying the immersive environments. At Disney, people are stuck on their phones. Personally I appreciate the adult lady HP fans in the plaid skirts. Very nice look.
Plan to spend the whole day at Kennedy Space Center. It was a lot of fun, more fun than I thought it would be. And see if there’s a scheduled launch. We were lucky to see one from the beach.
Last edited by PhDeac; 01-28-2022 at 08:47 PM.
Kennedy is so good. When you see the Space Shuttle…
Yes! Awe inspiring. Definitely take the time to do the ride in the Atlantis area. It's unlike any motion ride you've done at a theme park like Mission Space or Star Tours.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote